I was contemplating buying a new center section and clamps, so that'd be about £55

5th Oct should be good for me, got nothing lined up (unfortunately).
Film and photos would be an excellent idea, I've got a DSLR, have either you or Kev got a camcorder?
If not, I'm sure I can borrow dad's.

Ooo Jim/Xac, you don't fancy making that a long weekend from the 23rd to 26/27th of October do you? I can almost certainly get those days off. Im not going to be able to get any time off during term time I suppose it would be a struggle doing it within a full weekend?

red_dwarfers wrote:Ooo Jim/Xac, you don't fancy making that a long weekend from the 23rd to 26/27th of October do you? I can almost certainly get those days off. Im not going to be able to get any time off during term time I suppose it would be a struggle doing it within a full weekend?

That weekend is right out for me unfortunately Kev Already booked up by work

Week after next is one week I can slip off from work without causing too much grief....

red_dwarfers wrote:Ooo Jim/Xac, you don't fancy making that a long weekend from the 23rd to 26/27th of October do you? I can almost certainly get those days off. Im not going to be able to get any time off during term time I suppose it would be a struggle doing it within a full weekend?

That weekend is right out for me unfortunately Kev Already booked up by work

Week after next is one week I can slip off from work without causing too much grief....

And with autumn well on it's way, I'd rather get the job done sooner than later, sorry Kev.

Did an oil and filter change on the V6 this morning as a nice, gentle introduction to a busy day. I took a good look at the pinion valve return hose and was pleased to see it nice and dry following the replacement of the perished pipe a few days ago.

This was the end of the old pipe where it slips over the end of the metal pipe. You can see the cracks that were weeping LHM.

Alex, and old friend of mine and erstwhile owner of a Peugeot 309GTi Goodwood dropped by this afternoon with a pair of Peugeot 106 front struts under his arm. He needed the wheel bearings replaced. Did he just They were nearly seized!

They were well rusted in and just getting the retaining circlips out proved quite a challenge, being firmly rusted in their grooves.

The hydraulic press made short work of extracting the old bearings but we were both quite surprised to see a force of almost 7 tons being needed to shift them from where they had been for the past 18 years!!!

The old bearings were full of rust and not a trace of grease left in them. Speaking about it to Dad, he thinks the car might have been stranded in floodwater at some time in its life.

The new bearings slipped home nicely, needing only about a ton and a half of force to settle them in.

All this talk of tons of force needed to do the bearings makes me wonder if Haynes ever actually tried this job using the vice method they suggest in the BoL for removing and replacing them. Perhaps on a new car it might have worked but on a J plater with 140,000 miles on the clock, no way!

CitroJim wrote:Behind the scenes, work continues well with the new forum server and converting the forums to phpBB3. My personal jury is out over whether or not phpBB3 is a good move or if we should stick to phpBB2 as we are on now. have a look at the new test forums at www.xantiav6.co.uk/forum for the FCF and www.xantiaactiva.co.uk/forum for the BXC and tell me what you think. I'm not happy with the speed of phpBB3.hard...

xantia_v6 wrote:Jim, Is there any way I can help with your matrix jobby? I need to build up some credit points for later help in stripping down the 4HP20 from my Mk2 V6.

Sadly not It's just been done I unexpectedly had a couple of days off this week for complex reasons involving compensation for being unable to take next week off as planned due to work commitments and time owed.

No worries on the gearbox sir, you absolutely do not have to build up any sort of credit for a job like that; I'll be only too happy to

Xac, at incredibly short notice, came over to join me in the adventure and we got stuck in. I started at 8 AM and finished the last bit as 7:30 Thanks Xac, absolutely wonderful and very heavily appreciated

Paul (Citroenxm) was the unwitting star of the show as he gave us a hint of how to make the job easier by splitting the heater box inside the car and thus avoiding disturbing the LHM reservoir and aircon drain and so on. This made the whole job so much easier. Paul, I am forever deeply indebted to you for that.

We also took an opportunity to try disconnecting the matrix pipework at the matrix itself on the flange where it joins the matrix proper. That helps enormously too. The joint is sealed by two O rings and I reckon now it's these that fail and not the matrix itself. In my old one the O rings had gone brittle and fell apart. It was clearly leaking from that flange.

The heaterbox was full of antifreeze crystals which we blew out with an airline.

The most tedious job was to unjoin the two hoses that had been cut and jointed together with a length of copper pipe. I got hold of a Citroen Berlingo connector with pipes attached and it took ages to trim these to a suitable size and connect them to the existing V6 pipery. I'm not entirely happy with the result but it's better that what was there. I discovered that one pipe as previously bodged was running very close to the rear bank exhaust and could have burned through at any time

Xac has taken a good number of pictures of the important little bits to help anyone doing the job.

So now I have heat and that lovely smell that comes with a new matrix Bliss!

We do it all over again tomorrow as we're replacing the matrix in Xac's Activa 8)

I reckon using Paul's heaterbox split and disconnecting the matrix water pipes at the flange, we can bring the job down to 8 hours...

Tomorrow we'll see!

I'm well exhausted so off to bed in a bit ready for Matrix No. 2 tomorrow...

My apologies for not being around on the forum today but you know why now!

Again, huge and heartfelt thanks to both Xac and Paul for their massive contributions to the success of our endeavours today

Forgot to say. The scuttle panel came off OK although it took some patient work with a very sharp craft knife and warmth from the sun. Another of Paul's incredibly valuable contributions to the job. Thanks again Paul

My windscreen and scuttle seal were original and had never previously bee disturbed.